


full of you

by threadoflife



Series: sherlock ficlets [10]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Baby Watson dies, Infant Death, John suffers, Loss, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock is helpless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 15:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8850679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threadoflife/pseuds/threadoflife
Summary: John didn't react to his daughter's death for months.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This time an unprompted bit of spontaneous typing, sorry for the roughness etc

John didn’t react to it for months.

Sherlock had not expected anything else. He might have thought–hoped–in the privacy of his own mind, that Ella might reappear in John’s life, despite the misgivings Sherlock had for her. It was a selfish thought: how the hell was Sherlock supposed to respond to this? What was he supposed to do? Even he knew this was not the case for a sixpack of beer and some of those action movies John was so awfully fond of; neither was it a case for humour, or deductions, or anything else Sherlock might be able to offer. And they didn’t do hugs. That wasn’t who they were.

Ella, in short, was the only response Sherlock could think of. There were no how-to-comfort-the-person-you’re-in-love-with-who-has-just-lost-a-baby-guides in the bookstore, or on the internet. (And if there were any they’d likely be as helpful as those guides on Best Man’s speeches.) Seeing Ella would be the sane thing to do; sensible; and ‘right,’ if there were such a thing.

Ella did not reappear. Not after Mary, not after the baby. Sherlock had mentioned this to Mycroft, once, and Mycroft had looked at him, inclined his head, and uncharacteristically–maybe even kindly, but only with a blow to the head–said: “You’ll figure it out.”

Sherlock, stung, had spat at him, “You’ve gained three pounds!” and stormed off. Well, maybe it served him right–he had asked his brother for advice, after all; of course this was what he’d get.

Later, when John had not shown a single sign of contacting Ella or anyone else of her trade, Sherlock had fled down to Mrs Hudson on the excuse of needing to consult her expertise in running a household and the toxicity of specific cleaning products. She’d looked at him and said, “These things take time, Sherlock,” and Sherlock had hissed, “We don’t _have_ time. He’s hurting–right now–and there has to be something I can do against it!”

The pity in Mrs Hudson’s eyes had been answer enough. Sherlock had smoked his way through an entire pack of cigarettes that night and had only stopped when John, waving his hand dramatically and coughing pointedly for the fifth time, had told him to cut it out. He had. It seemed to be the only thing he could do for John, these days.

John had nightmares, in which he screamed or cried. When awake, he’d stare off into the distance and be elsewhere entirely. He did that a lot. He stuck to routine–getting up at five thirty no matter how little sleep he’d had; going to work; coming back from work; dinner; going to bed at ten the latest–when he wasn’t going on cases with Sherlock.

He was going on cases most of the time. They chased criminals down alleys, waited too long in too narrow corners for suspicious activities to occur, adopted fake names to gather data. John did all of this competently, as he ever had, and he never once complained.

It wasn’t the first time, but Sherlock wanted rid of the cases. He wanted to sit John down and do what he needed to do for John–fix him. He needed to find a way to fix John.

He was Sherlock Holmes, and he could cheat death, but this seemed to be the one thing he couldn’t do.

He couldn’t be what John needed.

*

It was during the winter that Sherlock finally understood.

John had yelled in his sleep, and Sherlock set aside his violin, sighing. Nothing seemed to help ease John’s mind, these days. It was understandable, really. Nothing had eased Sherlock’s mind when he’d thought he’d lost John, and losing one’s child, he was told, was the worst experience that could potentially happen to a human being.

Sherlock put the violin back and made his way up to John’s room. He stood outside the door, as he always had these last few months, and lay his palm against it. There was John, behind that door. He was suffering–hurting–crying. Sherlock couldn’t do a thing. ‘Being there’ was no use, but it was a compulsion Sherlock couldn’t seem to let go of.

It took John five minutes to begin crying that night. Usually it took him longer. Sherlock stood there, immobile, frozen not just from the cold but so many years’ old aches, and listened. He wasn’t brave enough to push the door open.

John was.

After some more minutes, his crying slowly subsided, and there was the sound of the blankets rustling, and then the thud of bare feet on the floor, and–

He opened the door to Sherlock staring, dumbfounded, paralysed, into John’s freshly awake, tear-stained and blotchy face–looking so old these days, so old–and Sherlock could do nothing but stare. He had heard John moving towards him. He hadn’t been able to move an inch.

“Sherlock?” John’s voice came out rough, low. “You okay?”

“John.” _How stupid, God, he knows his name, say something. Say something._ “John. I–”

“Yeah?” Blinking, John looked at Sherlock’s hand, still outstretched in the space between them. He didn’t hesitate to wrap his own hand around it, seemingly for no reason. “Christ, Sherlock, you’re freezing!”

John pushed Sherlock into his room, wouldn’t take no as an answer, and was satisfied only once he had Sherlock wrapped up in his blanket. Sherlock was still dumbstruck, still wordless, overcome.

Something about the night and the darkness, though, made the words come easier.

“I want–I want to help you,” he said helpelssly, his mouth moving without his volition, “but I don’t know how. John, I cant–I can’t fix this. John, I’m–I’m sorry.”

John stared down at him for such a long time that Sherlock feared for an irrational moment he’d spoken in Russian or another to John incomprehensible language until John finally reacted.

John didn’t react to this for months.

He reacted now.

“Sherlock,” he said, and that was all he said. “Sherlock,” he said again, and Sherlock thought John might be choking, was about to ask him if he was in fact, when John brought his arms around Sherlock’s head and pressed Sherlock’s face into the soft space between his ribs–when John himself bent low with his upper body, over Sherlock in a half circle, his arms so tight around Sherlock they hurt.

“Sherlock,” John said, and Sherlock hoped, with all he had and all the was, that the same way Sherlock was full of John right now–arms tight around his middle in return, breathing in John’s sweat and fear–John might be full of him one day so he could forget the pain.

John only said, “Sherlock,” and maybe that was answer enough.


End file.
